Metro Rings and November Lucky Star BOM

Once upon a time I really wanted to do a fresh,new, complicated,but achievable quilt pattern. Oh and it had to be jelly roll friendly guys:)   I came across Metro Rings and I was sold!   Bought the ruler and some Kona white for the background and got to work cutting.  There was no shortage of cutting.  Once that was all said and done, the sewing curves part was actually the easiest part of the whole process!  Then came the squaring up and it was not pretty.  I even went so far as to email another quilter/blogger (she has a tutorial up now as to how she did her squaring up for Metro Rings) and the designer herself, Jenny Pedigo.  I received a response from Jenny's assistant/friend about 3 hrs after I sent the email off.  Great service!!  After reading her email, it all made sense and I went right to work trying it out.  I squared each of the many,many pieces to 9 1/2".  Sewed some more and then squared up again using my wanna be fabric ruler.  The blocks were supposed to measure up to 10".  Error wrong!!!  They were coming out smaller at 9 3/4" and even some at 9 5/8".

I thought the whole quilt top was a gonner,but I kept moving onward.  Somehow it all worked out with only one real minor set back that I can certainly live with to include a few of the setting triangles being cut off a bit.

Scrappy must be in my blood because this is yet another one of my quilts that has come out scrappy.  I did use a jelly roll for the first time and a charm pack from the same line.  There are dominant colors of teal, green, red,tan and dark blue,but to me it has a scrappy vibe.  This covers some of my mistakes---shhhh don't tell;)

The teal and red are my favorites in this whole top:):):):)

I ordered some backing fabric yesterday called Aspen Frost by Basic Grey and it should be here in a week at best I hope.  Ready to get to pinning and quilting on this one!  It is going to be our Christmas quilt after all!

Look at ALL these tiny pieces!  The biggest being 2" I believe.

These are ALL of 16 papers ready to go for my next Lucky Stars BOM.

OK see the center piece in grey tones and the 4 corners in pink?  The first time I did the center, the colors were not doing it for me so I threw it out and started over.  Then the next set of rectangle pieces didn't match up right.  Maybe  I needed a small break as the hubby was hinting.  I wasn't going to take no for an answer as the center was the only area I had left to tackle.  Back to the drawing board!  I finally got it,but for some reason I had to use 2 "f" sections to make it work right.

She is done and I am finally happy with the colors!  See a couple turtles peeking out?  Love them!

These scrumptious Snuggle prints were on sale at Joann's and are next in line for Ayden's Christmas PJ's present.  Shhhhh it will be our secret.....k?

If that doesn't keep me busy for too long then I will be starting on Jade's diaper bag with a tutorial from Sew Much Ado.  Before I go though, I need your help guys!!

Which of these prints goes with/ do you like best with Sarah Jane's Out to Sea mermaid print in your humble opinion????

~

#1?

#2?

#3?

#4?

Please write your number in the comments:)

Time for me to get Ayden from school in a minute here!  One more day of school for him and then he is on Thanksgiving break.  

Tomorrow is going to be extra special for me! It is not only my Birthday, but I also go for another Ultrasound to see Jade!!  Oh and how could I forget---Ayden is having a Thanksgiving celebration in his classroom.  I am bringing the pies;)  Yippeeeeeeeeeee.....!!!

Everyone I want to wish ya'll a Happy,Happy Blessed Thanksgiving!!!!!!!

~Sara

Crazy Mom Quilts

Quilting will always pull me through.

The weather around here has been tagging right along with how I feel these days, health wise.  We have had 70's temps all the way down to 50's through the last couple of weeks.  Up and down here we go!  I have had a cold for the last (almost) 2 weeks and before that I was fine for a couple weeks.  BUT there was a cold present before that! 

I visited the doctor the other day finally as I was fed up with it all.  Diagnosis: cold and sore throat.  Well that is good as far as not having strep throat or a sinus infection.  I have never had a sinus infection I can proudly say, but strep once or twice in my life so far.  Not complaining.  Mucinex and Sudafed at night for me and LOTS of water, hot tea and rest,rest,rest!  Not much else for this pregnant mama. 

In between this horrible raspy cough I got going,I try to block it out with some TLC of sewing!!  I finished all of the receiving blankets for now.  Maybe I will do a couple more later.  We'll see.  They are all folded up ready for our little one:):):):)

With the burp cloths, I almost bought some more flannel to back these babies.  Then I got wise and remembered that I had some leftover fleece in a bin packed away. 

Nothing makes for a more fun time sewing then being able to use some of those prints in my stash that have been sitting around 3-4 years waiting for the perfect project.  I got all matchy, matchy here and rolled with it.

The flannel on flannel ones are quite nice too.  I matched thread color too for the heck of it.  Once again because it was fun and that is why I sew!! 

All of the burp cloths are soooo soft and it feels really good to have made them all for pretty much free!

Metro Rings there you are!  These were calling me and I was happy to oblige.  I am hoping wholeheartedly to get this quilt top moving,moving,moving.  The curves are very easy to ease into the white pieces cut out.  Guess what?  No pins required either!  Yeah.  That part is pretty darn cool.  It's like magic!  Then that other stack of Kona white I sew on next with OUT pins.

Part 2:  not so easy does it...

I had to square them up with the Quick Curve Ruler and it wasn't working AT ALL.  So I decided to go ahead and trim off 1/4" on each side to bring them down to the required 9 1/2" squared.  Then  you sew two of the halves together to make a square.

You come out with this in the pic-- minus the dotty triangles.  Add in the dotty triangles and square that up which is supposed to be achieved with a 10" square ruler.  No go....so I improvised with a cut out fabric 10" square with a diagonal line running through it.  I lined that up on the center seam of the "football" looking block, put a pin through to the seam on the block to make sure I was hitting the seam and the diagonal line right on.  Lastly, I  trimmed away to make the whole thing 10" square.  Seemed to have worked.  I got the test block out of the way and now onto the rest!

On a side note:  I emailed Jenny Pedigo which is the designer of the Metro Rings pattern, to see if she could maybe shed some light on squaring these guys up with her ruler she also designed.  There was also another fellow quilter/blogger I found that did this pattern earlier this year.  I emailed her as well and we have been conversing back and forth about it.  She had issues with it too and plans on making another Metro Rings quilt in the beginning of next year.   I'm looking forward to seeing her process.

For the time being I am going to continue to sew the white fabric on each of the pieced curves.  That will keep me busy for awhile I presume;)

I have some Honey Lemon hot tea calling my name! 

Hope everyone is staying healthy and taking care of themselves:)

Hugs!

Sara

In Stride

This week has gone by pretty darn quick with a meeting at Ayden's school one night, a turkey parade another and yesterday a turkey dinner at a local school that went along with the week that they celebrate their Turkey Festival here.  Now if only the upcoming week will sail by!  Next Saturday will be the BIG day for my ultrasound.  The one where I find out if Ayden will have a little brother or a little sister.  This is a very clear moment for me as I of course went through the same feeling with Ayden before we knew what sex he was going to be.  I must say it is truly one of the best feelings EVER!  Either way, boy or girl I am ready for the big reveal!  Feeling extremely blessed to be pregnant again!!

I have plenty.  Yes plenty of sewing to keep me busy and there is always Ayden to keep me moving and grooving as well. 

 I am working on my curves with my new Quick Curves ruler and there are many to be cut.  It's almost like I have my work cut out for me....hahaha  I couldn't resist;)  Once I changed my blade out for a new one, it was so much better too.

I also had to cut a whole lotta squares and then crosscut them into triangles which then are shaped with the ruler.  There are are also strips cut into rectangle sizes that need to be shaped as well.  Like I said LOTS of cutting.  Preciseness is key here.  At least Christmas is a few months away right?!  

Hey!  Where did these Christmas trees come from and why are they on my cutting table? 

This is a commission quilt for a sweet friend of mine from MOPS that I started the other day.  You may remember these guys from last year as I used them in two quilts.  One was auctioned at MOPS and the other was made for my shop.  My friend, Yvonne was really wanting one since she saw those two and so she asked me to sew one up for her home during the holidays. 

This white polka dot print is going to be the background color.  Isn't it super cute? 

That is what's keeping me busy.  What have all ya'll been up to this past week?


Sara